Shoppers prepare for Black Friday

Julian Hearne

A new survey has revealed that thousands of shoppers are intending on beating the Black Friday rush by shopping online whilst at work.

The survey undertaken by Stop Procrastinating, the productivity website, found that 64% of respondents admitted that they intend to use work time to browse the Internet for the best Black Friday deals instead of working.

A total of 35 percent of respondents admitted to spending at least four hours of work time browsing for deals during Black Friday last year and they intend to spend the same or more this year. Almost half (44 percent) believed that they wouldn’t do that much work on black Friday as they’d be too distracted by shopping to get the best deals.

Black Friday online shoppers have developed a range of techniques to appear to be undertaking work when they are not. Almost a third of those questioned (32 percent) said they intended to have a number of Internet browser windows open on their computer screen so they could flip between work and shopping websites and 27 percent said that they would use their smart phone in the office toilet to make a black Friday online purchase.

A smaller proportion (6 percent) admitted they would take a sick day in order to shop during black Friday and double this admitted they would stay up until the earlier hours to shop online during Black Friday and were prepared to be late or tired at work the next day due to lack of sleep.

Tim Rollins, director at Stop Procrastinating, said: “The pressure to buy online on Black Friday has clearly had an impact on concentration levels at work. With big deals, the pressure to browse the Internet than work is overwhelming for some.”